Atta flour is typically used in the countries of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Indonesia and is the flour of choice for making food products such as chapati, naan, parota, roli, and roti breads. A specific flour is required to make such breads because the flour must have high a percentage of starch damage and a fine granulation so that the dough absorbs more water and the dough formed from the flour is sticky. Also, when the atta flour is formed into a bread it is desired for the bread to have a particular color, with the color resultant primarily from the amount of ash found in the flour. Thus, the atta flour has specific characteristics that are required for producing an atta flour that is commercially viable and suitable for making the before mentioned breads, namely, high starch damage and an amount of ash greater than 1%.
Traditionally, atta flour is made in small villages throughout the countries mentioned above, with the wheat used to form the flour ground by hand in a stone mill. Grinding the wheat in a stone mill produces a flour that has high levels of starch damage, and a desirable color and granulation. Starch damage results from the attrition of the starch granules in the stone mill. The harsh physical treatment by stone milling causes the starch granules to rupture, crack, and cut, as well as, other types of damage to the starch granules. The portion of the starch granule primarily damaged is the large lenticular granules, the starch granule also includes the small spherical granules but these are not typically damaged. It is further known that the proportion and percentage of starch damage increases with the severity of grinding. While, stone milling produces sufficient starch damage, most stone milling methods unfortunately are done by hand and are inefficient. Mechanically driven stone mills can be developed, but few large stone mills which are mechanically driven produce an atta flour with characteristics similar to an atta flour produced by a hand stone mill. Further, most mechanical stone mills have a small capacity, this means the stone mills are inefficient. Because hand stone mills are inefficient and most commercial stone mills generally do not produce an acceptable atta flour and are inefficient, it is desired to find a method for producing the atta flour on a commercial scale. The atta flour has tremendous commercial potential because the atta flour is consumed by a large portion of the world's population. In particular, increased industrialization and urbanization of India has increased the demand for convenience food and high volume production of atta flour. It is important to find a process where a large scale method can be used to produce atta flour with high starch damage. It is further desired to be able to produce the atta flour on a commercial basis, as opposed to producing the atta flour by hand methods or small capacity stone mills.
Most known previous methods developed for producing an atta flour on a commercial scale have proven unsuccessful. Some of the known atta flours produced according to other commercial processes have suffered from insufficient starch damage in the flour and/or an inadequate color. It is desired to have a commercial process for producing an atta flour that does not involve a stone grinder to mill the wheat.
Furthermore, most known commercial flours, in particular non-atta flours, do not have a level of starch damage equal to about 15%, in fact most commercial whole wheat flours have an amount of starch damage equal to about 9% or less. As such, most known flours produced by a roller mill or similar device do not have characteristics similar to the atta flour. It is preferred to not have high starch damage in whole wheat flours as this will make the dough formed from the flour too sticky, and the bread crumb dough will be gummy.
It is desired to have an efficient industrial process for producing an atta flour having sufficient starch damage, so that breads indigenous to India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Indonesia can be readily produced from commercially available flour. Such a process would preferably eliminate the need for traditional hand formation methods, such as stone milling, as well as, commercial processes involving stone milling.